The Book of the Maidservant (11 page)

t
he next morning, our path leads us into a forest. Finally, we’re out of the rain, in a dry area. As we crunch through the bracken, I go out of my way to wade through deep piles of leaves, kicking at them gleefully, smelling their rich earthy smell. When I realize the merchant and his packhorse are staring at me scornfully, I stop. The merchant can look at me that way all he wants and I don’t care, but his horse makes me feel foolish.

When I stop scuffling the leaves so loudly, I can hear the dry ones that still hang from the tree limbs. With each puff of wind, they rustle with the sound of water.

By midday, there’s no sound at all except our feet hitting the ground. The wind has dropped, and the air has grown still. Too still. We are deep within the woods, following the merchant along dark trails. Does he really know the way? Branches snag my hood and vines claw at my hair. I duck and twist as the trees’ fingers reach out, grasping at me. I try not to think of the tales I’ve heard about evil spirits dwelling deep within forests. When I see eyes peering at me from a hole in a tree, I scurry closer to my mistress.

We don’t take the time to stop for a meal. All of us are eager to be out of this still, dense wood. The darkness grows heavier, the forest quieter, as if it’s listening to us. The trees seem to bend toward us. When a twig grabs at my cheek, I jump, slapping it away.

A bolt of lightning illumines the dark trees. The sharp crack of thunder makes the horse neigh nervously. “We’ll be wanting shelter,” Father Nicholas says.

“Fine, how about that lovely tavern over there?” Petrus Tappester says.

Father Nicholas doesn’t answer his sarcasm.

We are scarcely ten paces farther when another lightning bolt shows us a hut ahead of us.

“There, you see? The Lord will provide,” Father Nicholas says.

“A charcoal burner’s hut,” the merchant says.

We race for it, pushing into the tiny space just as the storm lets loose with great gusts of rain-laden wind. Only the merchant’s horse stands outside, absorbing the downpour. There’s no room for him, and he’s an evil creature, but I feel sorry for him all the same. I know he’s afraid of the thunder.

There’s not even room for us to turn around in the window less dark. I’m pressed up against my mistress, my nose shoved into the scratchy damp wool of her cloak. Bartilmew presses against my pack. Dame Isabel kicks my ankle twice before she realizes I’m not a wall.

“Where’s my flint?” the merchant growls. He strikes a spark at the same moment lightning flashes outside the open doorway. In the weird, quick shadows, I can barely
distinguish the dark shapes of the pilgrims. We stand huddled and bent, like souls waiting for the fires of damnation.

“Here’s a lantern, lads,” John Mouse says. “Where’s that flint?”

Once the lantern is lit, the shadows play wildly against the straw and mud walls. Water streams in from a hole in the thatch, and there are so many drips that we might as well be out in the downpour. I can’t tell if the terrible smell comes from the hut or from us, with our dirt and our wet wool.

Outside, the wind shrieks and the walls seem to press in on us. Everyone jumps at the crack of a falling tree. As it crashes to the forest floor, I can feel the ground trembling through my whole body. Gusts of rain sweep in from the entryway—there’s no door to keep out the cold water.

“Any food over there worth eating?” Petrus says.

“It’s not ours to eat,” Father Nicholas says.

“If we’re here, it’s ours,” Petrus says. “Toss us something tasty.”

“There’s nothing but onions,” Thomas says.

“Well, toss us an onion, then.”

“It’s not ours,” Father Nicholas says again in a faint voice.

As if to agree with him, a stooped little man suddenly pushes his way in the door, jabbering loudly. Even the merchant can’t understand him. He shoulders his dripping body between us, and we crush back farther against each other to make room. For a minute, I think he might be a wood sprite, not a charcoal burner—he’s shorter than I am, and his sinewy arms are as dark as cherrywood.

“Oh, what a horrible, filthy creature,” Dame Isabel says.

Once he’s by the wall, the little man sits down, right by Thomas’s legs. He says something, then pulls food out of a bag tied to his belt and begins to chew.

We stand there dumbly, not knowing what to do. It’s his hut, but he isn’t trying to make us leave. John Mouse speaks. “Perhaps we should eat as well.”

He’s right. Chewing oatcakes and apples makes us relax and forget the storm. By the time we are through eating, the thunder has abated. The cold air that follows the rain seeps through my damp skirt.

“Our host is asleep,” Thomas announces.

“Time we got on,” the merchant says.

As we leave the hut, I glance back at the dark little man. He’s wrapped his arms around himself and curled up against the wall. He smiles in his sleep. When nobody is looking, I take the last withered apple from my scrip and leave it on the ground beside him.

The storm clouds have rushed past us to harry other pilgrims, and the sky between the trees grows lighter. When the trees themselves seem to thin out, we all breathe with relief. “Here’s the path,” the merchant calls out, and he sounds the happiest I have heard him.

We follow eagerly, and I barely mind the way the branches slash at my face. But soon the trees begin to crowd round us again. The merchant slows to a stop. We look at each other, and then we look into the dark woods. Where is the path?

“This way,” Dame Isabel’s husband says.

“No, you fool, over here,” Petrus Tappester says.

“Listen,” Thomas says.

“Come, it’s this way,” Petrus says, crashing through the woods.

“Listen,” Thomas says again, and in a sudden silence, we all hear what he hears. Church bells. Behind us.

We stand listening, and then, wearily, we turn back the way we came, plodding through the dripping trees, dodging branches, fighting our way through thick bushes. Spiderwebs tangle in my hair, and I wipe them from my face, hoping no spiders still live in them. I am so tired that I want to sink to the ground and sleep, but we must keep on.

Every few steps, we stop to listen for the bells and then resume our battle with the forest.

It’s growing dark by the time we find the forest edge, and we tumble gratefully out into a stubbly, newly harvested field that’s dotted with haystacks. In the distance, we can see the walls of a town and the roofs inside it. Tired as we are, we break into a trot, the thought of warm food and beds goading us forward.

Sharp spikes of straw poke through my boots and scratch my legs as I cross the field, slowing me. Everyone else is equally slow, and Dame Isabel lags far behind, Bartilmew helping her along.

Dark has settled around us by the time we make it to the town gate. Even if there’s no inn, we’ll be happy to be within the walls and safe from whatever might come out of the forest in the night—outlaws or wolves or evil spirits.

The merchant calls out in some foreign tongue, and a man holding a torch looks down at us. The flame flickers in the wind, lighting his face with weird reds and devilish
yellows. He shouts down to the merchant, who shouts back. Why won’t they hurry? Can’t they see how tired we are?

I rub at the scratches on my arms and legs. Food, fire, bed—that’s all I want. I don’t even care if I have to do the cooking.

The merchant’s shouting sounds angry. So does the voice of the man with the torch. But he disappears from the guard tower, and I look toward the wooden door inside the vast stone gate.

It doesn’t open.

“The devil take him!” the merchant says. “It’s past curfew and they won’t open the gates.”

“But we’re pilgrims,” Dame Isabel says in a little whimper.

“Did you tell him I’m a priest?” Father Nicholas says.

“They’ve had trouble from the forest,” the merchant tells us. “They won’t open the gate for anybody.” He gestures toward the field and spits. “He says we’re welcome to a haystack.”

A haystack?

“Foxes have their holes and the birds of the air have their nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head,” Father Nicholas says.

“Amen,” John Mouse says ruefully. “Well, if you don’t mind the mice, at least haystacks are warm. Come, Thomas.” The two of them head across the field to one of the distant lumps I can barely see in the dark.

“Come along, girl,” my mistress says. We don’t look back to see what the others do. When we come to a
haystack, we burrow holes for ourselves and climb in, careful to make sure we can still breathe.

My stomach grumbles, but John Mouse is right. We’re warm and out of the wind. The hay scratches, and I can feel bugs crawling up my skirt and down my neck, but we’re not walking for a change. I fall asleep, picturing John Mouse scrunching his way into a haystack, cocooned in his black robe.

a
ll the next day, I scratch at bug bites. It takes me forever to get the straw from my mistress’s gown, and my hair is full of it, too. So is everybody’s. We all sneeze from the dust and everybody scratches themselves, even Dame Isabel.

She wants to find an inn where she can wash, but Petrus and the merchant refuse to give their custom to the town that locked us out. Instead, we wash in an icy stream, then walk for hours until we come to another town. Even though there is plenty of daylight left, Dame Isabel refuses to leave once we find an inn. Even Petrus doesn’t argue with her for very long. Instead, he turns his attention to my mistress, who is once again warning the whole company not to eat meat—just as I serve the salt bacon. I scurry back into the kitchen. Let them argue. I’m just relieved to be eating warm food and to have a place indoors to scratch my bites.

But by the time we leave the next morning, I’ve been ordered around once too often and called a sullen child—by Dame Isabel, who should know, she’s so sullen herself.
My face stings from a slap Petrus gave me when he said I didn’t serve him fast enough. This was right after he’d lost to Thomas at dice. My mistress saw the whole thing, but she never said a word.

I pull my cloak around me against the chill wind and walk along behind the company, my boots biting into my toes, rocks biting into my boots. What if I ran away? I could live in the forest, sleeping in one of the tall oaks. Or I could find an abandoned hut like the charcoal burner’s. I could eat nuts and hunt rabbits, now that I know how
not
to cook them. If I stayed in one place long enough, I could soak the peas all day long before I cooked them. The pot is in my pack; the flint and strike-a-light are in my scrip.

John Mouse slows his pace until he walks beside me. “Dreaming, little serving maid?”

How did he know?

“So, they don’t dream,” he says when I don’t answer. “You were only considering what a fine brewet you’ll cook for us and the best way to get that stain out of your mistress’s cloak.”

I hadn’t noticed the stain. “I wasn’t always a servant,” I say.

“No?”

I shake my head. There are so many things I would like to say to John Mouse, but nothing comes to me now. What a simpleton I am.

“Do girls who weren’t always servants have names?”

“I’m Johanna.”

“Johanna! Then we have the same name day, from St. John the Evangelist.”

“I know that.” How stupid does he think I am? Very, considering what I’ve said to him so far. “I was dreaming of running away to the woods and never fixing another meal for certain people.”

“Certain people, eh?” He smiles. “I thought yours looked like the face of one who dreams. But beware—as the poet says, ‘Dreams, dreams, they mock us with their flitting shadows.’” He winks at me and sprints ahead to rejoin Thomas.

My face looks like the face of one who dreams? We share a name day! My feet no longer hurt. I repeat the poet’s words to myself so I won’t forget them. “Dreams, dreams, they mock us with their flitting shadows.”

John Mouse’s words sustain me like a hot eel pie on a cold day. I think of them that evening when Petrus Tappester yells at me for burning the brewet and the next morning when my mistress calls me a wretched girl for poking her when I’m pinning up her headdress. She’s lucky I didn’t poke any harder.

When Dame Isabel looks down her thin nose at the rip in the bodice of my gown, I run the poet’s words over my tongue. They soothe like clear stream water.

I repeat them to myself as we walk so I won’t have to hear people bickering, especially my mistress and Petrus Tappester. Even Dame Isabel argues with my mistress, when she’s not too busy arguing with her husband.

One cold day, we come to a town where an English-speaking priest tells us that with such discord in our company, we will come to harm unless we have great grace. My mistress follows him into a church. When she comes back
to the hospice, she says, “The Lord spoke to me in my mind. He said, ‘Don’t be afraid, daughter. Your party will come to no harm as long as you are with them.’”

Petrus laughs loudly. Over in the corner, I see Bartilmew moving his lips in prayer.

He does well to pray as long as I am in charge of the cooking.

When I pray, it’s to St. Margaret with her dragon; to St. Pega of the Fens; and to St. Guthlac, her brother, with his long, uncombed hair and his ragged clothes, standing patiently while winged devils assail him. They swarm around him like angry bees, but he just waits for their fury to subside. It’s harder for me, but then, I’m not a saint.